This job can be an excellent starting point for you. Time is spent in the receiving and marking room, identifying the hundreds of items of merchandise that have been delivered by the manufacturers for sale in your department. The merchandise must be processed quickly and brought to the selling floors for immediate sale. Good record-keeping skills are a necessity in this position, as reports must be prepared quickly and accurately. The buyer decides whether to reorder based on information on the number of items sold each day. In most stores, electronic data processing equipment is now used to help collect this information for the buyer. Familiarity with a computer is an asset.
The merchandise clerk usually is responsible for keeping up-to-date inventory records on the stock that is handled daily. Also, if the clerk is responsible for the stock in the branch stores as well, he or she must maintain telephone contact with these stores to coordinate the shipping and receiving of the goods. Chances are there will be contact with salespeople, clerical workers from other branches, assistant buyers, and very close contact with the buyers of various departments.
The position of merchandise clerk is often the first rung on the career ladder and might be filled by a high school graduate who has been promoted from the selling floor. It is a good position for anyone in the midst of completing a specialized degree program in a community college or for someone waiting to enter an executive training program. The job of stock clerk may be one to consider for part-time or summer employment while you are still in school. The tons of merchandise that large stores receive must all be recorded, tagged, and distributed. Working under the direction of the head of stock, the stock clerk plays a large part in the prompt and successful completion of these important tasks.
ASSISTANT BUYER
The position of assistant buyer is the most important stepping-stone to becoming a buyer. It is often the position given to college graduates who complete an executive training program. Assistant buyers may truly be thought of as buyers-in-training. The position involves all-around exposure to each phase of the buyer's responsibilities, including all management duties. It includes handling some of the department's budget, selecting and promoting merchandise, maintaining sales and inventory records, and supervising sales and stock employees. It also means spending a good deal of time in the sales area with salespeople and customers, and becoming familiar with and knowledgeable about merchandise. The assistant buyer often must assume the more routine aspects of the buyer's job, but what wonderful on-the-job training this position offers!
The assistant buyer will learn how to present merchandise properly and how to handle promotions and special department events. He or she will frequently accompany the buyer on visits to manufacturers (referred to as vendors in the industry) in the search for new sources of merchandise. Assistants will often take charge of and run a department in the buyer's absence. An assistant buyer also may be in charge of some part of a department. For example, an assistant in a sportswear department may have full responsibility for skirts. In some stores, the term "associate buyer" is used to describe the person who has buying responsibility for a particular category of merchandise rather than for the entire department.
Assistant buyers have contact with salespeople, merchandise clerks, and stock workers, as well as with the promotion, publicity, and display departments. There also will be meetings to attend with other assistant buyers, which is an ongoing part of the store's training program. As you can see, the days are full and busy, but very rewarding. If the assistant buyer is working closely with a buyer who is also a good teacher, much will be learned. Stores need good buyers for the future, and a great deal of training and preparation is invested in each assistant buyer.
The next step involves the assistant buyer's ability to show some potential for the role of full buyer. Merchandise managers and training supervisors often have a part in deciding not only whether an assistant buyer has the potential to be promoted to buyer, but when that promotion should occur. It also is possible to advance from one buying area to another. Someone who has been a successful assistant in the sportswear department may be promoted to a buyer in the shoe department. Although the merchandise may be different, the skills and techniques needed to run a profitable department are the same.
THE BUYER OR DEPARTMENT HEAD
The key person in the merchandising process, and one of the most important and responsible jobs in the business is that of the buyer or department head. Selecting items that customers will want to buy and then determining if you were correct is very exciting. The buyer needs to find the merchandise customers want and sell it at a profit, while always being informed of the competition's offerings. If the merchandise doesn't sell, the buyer must figure out the reason: poor quality? wrong color? too expensive? The days of a successful buyer are filled with excitement, pressure, hard work, and plenty of satisfaction. Buyers often spend a great deal of time away from the store, visiting markets or sources of supplies where they search for items that will sell. Travel to showrooms and factories, is involved in the important New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas markets. Buyers for certain departments may travel the world-to Europe, the Orient, or South America. These varied activities mean constant competition and a direct responsibility for sales and profits. And behind the excitement of choosing merchandise always must be a great deal of sound business judgment.
Every buyer has a specialty. Some buy women's sportswear only, some buy men's overcoats and suits. In large retail stores, the buyer's responsibility may be even narrower; for example, buying only women's dresses in the moderate price range or buying only preteen clothing. The bigger the store is, the more buyers it needs and the more specialized are the duties of those buyers.
Buyers always must operate with certain key questions in mind: Who are the customers? Are they rural, urban, or suburban families? Do they want conservative clothing or very trendy and stylish items? Are they budget conscious or will they be able to spend freely on clothing, accessories, and home furnishings? And what kind of store are you buying for-a high fashion shop, a mass market operation, a discount chain?
When a buyer is given a budget for a particular department for a season, the process of deciding which items to buy from which manufacturers begins. This process includes contact with a manufacturer or wholesaler to view and select the line of items, agreeing upon a price and delivery date, setting the selling price of the items, supervising the sales staff, being aware of the stockroom situation, arranging for the return of improper or defective merchandise, marking down slow-moving items, and helping to promote, display, and advertise those items. Buyers need complete knowledge of the customer's likes and dislikes, of the store's policies, and of resources or vendors.
The buyer, as the head of a department, has many of the responsibilities of an individual store owner, and can likewise measure her or his success in dollars and cents of profit for that particular department. They constantly compete against their own records and those of other departments and other stores. Every buyer tries to make this season's profits better than those of last season.
The buyer also needs to spend some time on the sales floor. This means having some contact with both customers and salespeople. In this way, the buyer can learn which items are selling, what needs to be reordered, what customers are asking for, and what items need to be marked down for quick sale.
All this information, plus information gathered from reading fashion journals and magazines and from shopping in other stores, comprises an integral part of the buyer's carefully thought-out plan for running the department profitably. Buyers also need to acquaint the sales staff with all new merchandise. Meetings are held to tell the salespeople about certain features of the merchandise and to encourage them to pass that news on to the customers. Important buying decisions are discussed with the buyer's boss, the merchandise manager.
Despite numerous precautions, don't think that buyers never make mistakes! Clearance racks often tell us that the buyer miscalculated some factor concerning the merchandise that customers were supposed to buy like hotcakes. If goods don't sell, a buyer may try to get an outside jobber to buy some of the merchandise. The jobber may want to buy the goods at a reduced price and then resell them. Or the buyer may try to arrange a special promotion or sale on the items to attract the customers' attention. The last resort is to put the merchandise on "clearance," which means reducing the price drastically to encourage very quick sales. Obviously, buyers try not to have too many items on the clearance racks, because it lowers the department's profits. Buyers also must spend some time figuring out what went wrong and why the goods did not sell well. The buyer must be aware when slow-selling items seem to come from the same manufacturer, and the buyer may not want to buy from that company in the future.
The opposite of the slow-moving product situation is known as "the runner." A runner is an item that really catches on. It is a fast seller and may need to be reordered many times. To keep up with the customers' demands, it may be reordered for the next season in different colors or in different fabrics.
Buyers must work well with figures. Profits and losses are always expressed in dollars and cents, and the buyer of every department must be proficient in math in order to compute the daily sales, margins, markdowns, and inventories. These daily computations enable buyers to plan their budgets and examine their profits and thus measure their success or failure on a day-to-day basis. No wonder good math skills are so important, even with the help of calculators and computers. Most buyers learn to work with computer printouts as a means of quickly identifying their department's daily tallies.
It should be easy to see that much of the fun and stimulation of the buyer's job comes from the variety, diversity, and challenge of each new day's work. Successful buyers may be rewarded with increased earnings, and by being given responsibility for a larger department or several departments. These achievements are realized only after years of work as a buyer. Before this you must undergo training as an assistant buyer, a position that can last anywhere from two to six years, depending on the policy of the store and your own capability and potential. Once you have been made a full buyer, you can be certain you have demonstrated a good deal of know-how in your area of specialization.
THE MERCHANDISE MANAGER
After you have learned the demanding job of buying for one and perhaps several departments, you may become one of the talented people promoted to the position of merchandise manager. The merchandise manager is directly responsible for a group of buyers and in many ways functions as a consultant, teacher, director, guidance counselor, and mentor. Merchandise managers must share the knowledge they have gained over the years with their buyers. They have complete control of the amounts of money their buyers will be spending and therefore attempt to guide the buyers on adventurous yet profitable paths. Merchandise managers work closely with the store's other merchandise managers and also compete with them for a larger share of customers' sales. And as with every buyer, beating last season's sales and profit figures is the merchandise manager's goal.
New shops within the store, boutiques, or special departments may be the result of a creative merchandise manager's thinking. They may add glamour, a slightly different approach, or a brand-new outlook to the division. For those who have the urge to make a division's business grow as if it were their own, and who possess an adventurous and enterprising spirit, it would be worthwhile to consider the position of merchandise manager, once the other required steps are completed.
Merchandise managers need to work very closely with buyers to help them in planning their visits to various markets and to teach them to turn their sales into profits. They must be familiar with each of the departments within their division. They must be aware of all new manufacturers and suppliers and alert buyers to new items, ideas, and trends that may have a bearing on sales. They also must continue to search out new and different sources, which may mean as much traveling as they did when they were buyers. The demands on their time and knowledge are great, but the rewards are often greater than the effort put forth. Besides, there is the opportunity to train support staff made up of buyers, assistants, merchandise clerks, and salespeople to work toward a profitable and exciting division. No small consideration for the true professional!
